Talking Points: Talking Points: The Food Crisis, a "Silent Tsunami"

Food Price Crisis – What's going on with the global price of food?:

According to the World Bank, food prices have climbed 83% in the last 3 years
Real price of rice rose to a 19-year high in March of 2008– an increase of 50% in 2 weeks alone
Real price of wheat hit a 28-year high in March 2008
Staples that many of the world's poor rely on are the food items that are rising in cost: cereal grains, cooking oil, dairy
In Bangladesh, rice prices have gone up 70%, hitting a population where the majority live on less than $1 a day
In Haiti, where ¾ of the population earns less than $2 a day and 1 in 5 children is chronically malnourished, the most destitute are consuming mud patties mixed with oil and sugar

What is causing global food prices to skyrocket?:

The IMF's World Economic Outlook 2008, released in April 2008, states “...Although biofuels still account for only ½ percent of the global liquid fuels supply, they accounted for almost half the increase in the consumption of major food crops in 2006-07.”
Biofuel demand has propelled the prices of not only corn, but other grains, meat, poultry and dairy

Diesel fuel is well over $4.00/gallon in the U.S.
The world oil price increased by 80% over the past 12 months and since 2001, China alone has accounted for about 40% of the increase in oil demand
Average crude oil prices are expected to jump 30.1% in 2008, compared to just 9.5% between 2006 and 2007

The IPCC Fourth Assessment Report projects that the effects of climate change will increase the number of undernourished people to between 40 and 170 million
Multiple year droughts in Lesotho and Swaziland caused exceptional shortfalls in aggregate food production/supplies
Multiple year droughts in Australia caused major shortfalls in wheat production, helping to drive the price of wheat up
In Nigeria and Ghana, the decline of coarse grain production led to tight food supplies, affecting rising food prices in Benin, Burkina Faso, Ghana, Niger, Nigeria and Togo
China experienced the harshest ice rains, snow and freezing weather since 1951, severely damaging millions of hectares of vegetable and oil crops. About 90 million people were reportedly affected since January 2008

Structural adjustment programs and other development programs for poorer nations have required a shift from food growing to cash cropping, a longer-term cause of the current global food price crisis

Food Riots – Food shortages undermine gains of middle classes and threaten political and social stability worldwide:

2 were killed in Somalia during recent food riots
In Haiti, 4 people were killed in protests over a 50% rise in the cost of food staples in the past year
In February 2008, the UN World Food Program reported seeing “the emergence of a 'new era of hunger' in developing countries where even middle-class urban people are being 'priced out of the food market' because of rising food prices.”
World Bank President Robert Zoellick has estimated that 33 countries could face social unrest because of higher food and energy prices

How are countries addressing this issue?:

In Cairo, Egypt, the military has been put to work baking bread for the poor
Pakistan has reintroduced ration cards for the first time in two decades
Russia has frozen prices of bread, milk, eggs and cooking oil
Indonesia revised its 2008 budget and has increased food subsidies by $280 million following protests
In the Philippines, the National Bureau of Investigation has been called in to raid traders suspected of hoarding rice to push up the prices
China, India, Egypt, Vietnam and Cambodia have imposed export controls on key agricultural commodities like rice (China) and powdered milk (India)
Ban Ki-moon, Secretary General of the United Nations, established a global food crisis task force that will begin meeting on May 12, 2008. He said he is moving “at full speed” to address the world food crisis. The UN is also looking at getting fertilizer and seeds to small farmers around the world
Bush requested an additional $775 million for international food aid from the U.S. Congress

REPORTS:

“Dangerous Liaisons: A Battle Plan from the UN and the International Financial Institutions to Fight Global Hunger”

ARTICLES:

Food Fights (by Laura Carlsen, Center for International Policy's Americas Program, 4/4/08)

Bush remarks on food crisis spark anger in India (By Alistair Scrutton, Reuters/Guardian, 5/5/08)

Price Shock in Global Food (Christian Science Monitor, 4/7/08)

Solving Asia's Food Crisis (by Haruhiko Kuroda, Opinion, Wall Street Journal, 5/5/08)

The World's Growing Food-Price Crisis (by Vivienne Walt, Time Magazine, 2/27/08)

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